Zollocco: A Novel of Another Universe (17 page)

I thought a long time. "I do not know my own will. All I can say is it has occurred to me at different points in my life that I want to know; I want to know the currents that run through things. I want to know what the currents mean, what they say, what they are. It is hard to describe. There are times when something other than myself, and yet inclusive of myself (I can almost see it), seems to course by like waters moving, or the stars traveling. I can almost hear it sometimes; almost grab it with my hand. It has meanings, meanings about things past, things ageless, things that extend through time. I want to know all; I want to know all it can tell me. I want to know where I am, if my feet touch the floor, if I exist at all. When I sense this thing it's as though tactile things, normal things are not there at all in reality, but that voices and dreams and visions are real, a force that move, move, move, constantly forming, shaping, discovering, being--cognizant and purposeful...
“I'm sorry, I'm a little disoriented. Something happens to me when I think about it." I gave myself a vigorous shake and tried to grin away my idiotic hypnotic state. I felt such a fool. Everyone was gathered around me staring at me.
"And she doesn't think she wants to be a Priestess!" someone laughed.
"For now, methinks thou wilt stay. If at any time thou wishest to depart, thou need only go," said my friend the Priest to me, and then he turned to the would-be Magistrate and said,"Thou art ready now?"
"I am. "
"Come then."
With the departure of the two, we all waited expectantly for the Priestess to tell us what was coming next. She said nothing. We relaxed and looked at the exquisite carvings. The seven columns extending to the arched ceiling were fruit trees sculpted in pure white salt. One tree had ivy climbing its trunk and entwined around the branches. The altar, carved like a mirnie bush, continued the floral theme. I sensed the unease of the others, and like them glanced at the Priestess. Still she remained mute.
Impatiently the disciple with the stack of books demanded, "Well, what have you to teach us? What is the Word the Forests, through you, wish to spread?"
The Priestess smiled, "We create Reality--"
"The Order of the Blue Dawn creates Reality! No wonder this is the most holy sect!" interrupted a flashily dressed woman.
The woman was obviously thrilled and awed at the prospect. All of us were attentive. I felt irritated that the Priestess had been interrupted. Surely she did not mean to imply such a power belonged to a religious group, and if she did--Get Me Out Of Here! The reactions of others differed. A short, muscular man leaned forward. The greed for power sparkled in his eyes. The man with books put on a look of thoughtfulness. A great, hulking woman wearing delicate post earrings snorted. A shy-seeming woman cocked her head to one side, in an open and waiting, but discerning attitude. An extremely skinny man with curly hair froze in his seat, frightened. A small wisp of a woman was also frightened. She shifted in her seat and strove to stifle little whimpers. The thunder of anger clouded the face and the lightning of resentment shot from the eyes of a heavyset man.
A young man with a teasing expression, smiled and spoke up, "Is that the `we' of your order, or `we' everybody?"
"Each and everyone one of us, individually and collectively
creates Reality," answered the Priestess, returning the fellow's good humor.
The heavy man was in a rage now, "I create my Reality?"
"Yes."
The heavy man hoisted himself up, "You mean to say that it's my fault?"
"Fault?" the Priestess wrinkled her brow as if to say, "Did I miss part of your meaning?"
"Don't get cute with me!" shouted the heavy man. And with great agility, determination, and disgust he slid himself through us and stomped to the door. A Priest appeared and exited with him, apparently to show him the way. When we had caught our breath and equanimity, again the man with books hazarded a question.
After carefully arranging his books in a stack beside him, he asked ponderously, "Reality? Please define your terms."
The shy, poised lady and I exchanged slight smiles. “Methinks I can not define Reality for others; methinks I don't even know if I can define it for myself. I may say it is one of the Blue Dawn tenets that each does have his or her own Reality, and that you and I alike must respect and accept the truth of another's truths. Nevertheless, there is a universe to be perceived. What we call truths are our closest approximations of perceiving and understanding the universe. As far as we can tell, the universe is dynamic, flexible, impressionable, and stable. The universe is dynamic in that it changes; it is flexible in that it evolves, and it is impressionable in that it alters itself according to the intent, belief, and desire of its components. The universe is stable in that it follows simple mathematical principles or rules that regulate its development. The dynamics, flexibility, and impressionability of the universe all are regulated by the mathematic principles to contribute to the universe‘s stability."
"But what kind of Reality are you referring to?" persisted Mr. Books (as I thought of him).
"Perhaps it is best if we discover what our beliefs are, and by taking this circuitous path come straight to the middle."
"You are implying then that our beliefs form our Reality," said the shy woman.
"They do to contribute to it."
"But only superficially, surely," responded Mr. Books.
"On the contrary, most profoundly. Let us begin to address this subject by first examining our beliefs about our own persons. Tell me, my good sir, what dost thou believe to be true of thyself?"
Mr. Books dropped his mouth open in confusion for a moment, and then he closed it firmly, intently jutting his rather prominent chin forward, and answered, "I believe that I am willing to question my basic assumptions--"
"And just what are thy basic assumptions, that is after all the question I posed thee."
Mr. Books, aghast at beingupbraided, tried valiantly again, "I believe that anything is possible."
"What dost thou believe about thy self?"
Mr. Books strained towards self-truth. "I believe that I am a man capable of listening openly."
"Good. That, my disciples, is an example of a personal belief about one's own self. Who wilt answer next?"
I intently looked at my shoes. I was painfully aware of the lengthening pause, and cringed that the Priestess might ask me next. I need not have worried; the others spoke up, their voices rising up in sequence around me; sometimes in self-congratulation, sometimes in self-condemnation, sometimes in relief, sometimes in despair, sometimes in surprise. And somewhere among all of this, I lifted up my head and said what I believed to be true about myself, "Sometimes I feel quite sure I am as old as the Earth, as Imenkapur itself, and yet I have no idea where such a feeling should come from." So, the scale of voices went on uninterrupted; sometimes major, sometimes minor, sometimes with accidentals, sometimes without. In finish to this cadence the Priestess asked us,
"Henceforth, please keep a diary of your dreams so that your work of self-discovery may continue, so that you may begin to glimpse the process which is the nature of creation, so that you may take a more knowledgeable part in your self creation, and the creation of all Ipernia."
After exiting the Library, I stood smelling the fragrance of sunset in the foliage. The wind had changed direction.

CHAPTER EIGHT
Intrusion

I spent two pregnancies at the seminary, learning the lore and the divinatory techniques the Blue Dawn Sect practices. Each of the Forests' Orders practice some divinatory arts, but the different Orders or Sects specialize in some area of service. The Order of the Blue Dawn specializes in psychic phenomena; the Order of the Forest Green in history, past life counseling, and political consulting; the Bright Noon Sect in computers, electronics, and holograms; the Wild Rain Sect in forestry and wild-life conservation; and the Healing Night Sect in healing--to name some of the Sects and Orders. Since the same tenets are taught at each of the seminaries with only the form of expressing those tenets varying, it is possible and not uncommon, for Priests and Priestesses to belong to more than one Order. Periodically Holy Folk from these Orders or Sects came to tell us about their work, and give us some rudimentary instruction in what they do.

Much of the instruction we received from them or from our own Sect's Holy Folk was held in the largest building of this seminary village, the assembly hall that had spooked me so when I first entered it. The vast room with its plush scarlet pews and energized atmosphere soon took on for me the comfortable quality of the familiar as we assembled there often for lectures, discussions, or experiments. One evening, however, in that assembly hall, a light-hearted experiment was interrupted by a sinister threat to our tranquility. We were gathered around a large, extremely heavy, rectangular, wooden table. With our hands spread on the table's top, we were in unison doing the regulated breathing needed to focus us in a trance state.

When we at last were in the receptive mode, Priestess Kindling, who was conducting the session, vocalized our intent; and we, murmuring, joined in the demand, "It is our belief that this table can rise, and so we suggest, we will that the table rise."

In louder voices we commanded, "Rise table! Rise!" After a little while of repeating this, and other statements to the same effect, the table did, slowly, unevenly rise.
"Rise! Rise!" we commanded, laughing.
The table rose until it was level with our chins. Then suddenly the table soared across the room, with us scampering to keep our hands placed on its surface. The table soared, knocked into the wall with a loud thump, and fell heavily to the floor, narrowly missing toes. The table had bashed a dent in the wall and marred the floor where it had landed. We tried to shove it back across the floor to where it belonged but it was too heavy.
"Let's try to keep control of it," said Priestess Kindling her chunky arms gracefully swaying with the movement of the table, "let's try to make it land gently."
We resumed our chants and again the table lifted into the air.
"Slowly, slowly!" warned the Priestess.
We managed to guide the floating table around the room at a slow pace although one end or the other of the table would dip suddenly, trying to fall to the floor. We coaxed the table up higher so that it levitated above our heads. Some complained that this was too high; all the blood was draining out of their arms as they reached up. So we lowered the table's position in the air. The table sped up again, and it was all we could do to keep up with it and steer it away from the walls. The table flew up the stairs of the assembly room's small stage, knocked over the lectern, and then flew down the stairs. We ran madly trying to keep up with it.
One disciple, Soma, who had lost his hold because he was
laughing so hard shouted, "I want a ride!" as the table sailed down the steps. Soma ran across the stage and leaped onto the table as it flew by the edge of the stage. To our astonishment, the table did not come crashing down under his weight. It actually stayed aloft and climbed in elevation. It rose so we could barely reach it. The shortest among us had to let go of the surface and grab the legs. It continued to rise, so that even the tallest of us couldn't touch its top and were forced to grab the legs. Soma, between gales of laughter, begged us to save him, to get him down. The table rose out of everyone's reach. It soared to the ceiling. We were laughing so hard tears poured down our cheeks. We waved our arms in a come down gesture, and the table lowered to halfway down. Soma danced a jig on top the table as it hovered in the air.
Suddenly, we all froze. The table and its passenger froze mid-air. Collectively we had been seized with a sense of foreboding. Even the disciple atop the table tilted his face, all humor gone, as he listened with inner senses for the source of the threat.
"We must get out of the assembly room," Priestess Kindling said. Her voice, held low and steady, was even more musical for her tension. "Our energy is like a beacon to whoever or whatever threatens us."
"I'm getting `Toelakhan'," said Arpedu, a woman disciple.
Others concurred. Gently, we lowered the table.
"We must put it back where it belongs," said Arpedu, "so that when they search the room they will not know we are here."
"Thou dost receive that they shall come into this place?" the Priestess asked, somewhat alarmed.
"I do."
With care, we floated the table to its original spot.
"Follow me, quickly now," Priestess Kindling directed.
As we hurried to the door it opened, and a Priest entered.
“Oh good, you are coming," he said joining us in our flight to the library. We hurried down, down, down the soundless floors past the stacks through the lightless library to the safety of the salt temple. All of the holy body in residence at the seminary was gathered in the great gleaming temple. Room was made for the cluster of us disciples on the pews. I was afraid to tell anyone that this was all because of me. The Toelakhan were trying to catch their valuable zitam. The familiar weight was still lodged in the pit of my gut, it seemed. I had thought I had eroded it away, but not all of it. Now the size of a pebble, a speckled pebble, it rolled around in my gut, shifting with my fears from one side to the other.
Since Priestess Kindling had charge of our instruction for the evening, she took her place behind the altar and spoke, her musical voice easily and soothingly filling the room: "Disciples, we are perfectly safe here in the Temple. Centuries ago a psychic barrier was joined to a magnetic field that encircled this temple, and so our presence here is undetectable. Above us, the elders claim this is their retirement community, and so it is. The elders, as is their way, will demand to know why they are disturbed. When their faces twitch with suppressed laughter, the Toelakhan will account it to the infirmity of age and the fear of Toelakhan might. And so ascribing it, the Toelakhan will miss the real meaning of the abruptness of the manners of the old and the repressed smiles that tug at lips grown thin with age. The elders, with the mischievous abandon that comes from their proximity to and wariness of death, will alternately harass and beguile the Toelakhan into abandoning their search for us.
"In this hour's need of secrecy and stealth, you understand why housekeeping habits allow no mark or sign of Priestly inhabitation; why the maintenance of the profane in the environment above us is a holy exercise of caution, and that guile is best left to infants and old women and men. For this hour's need, would it had not come, would it never come again, we leave our rooms each time as if we mean not to return ever again. By the wishes of Saemunsil, too, we may be asked to leave this village at any time or return at any moment. Practitioners of the Blue Dawn must adjust themselves to circumstance, must yield to the customs of those we find ourselves among, must alight as gently, as surely, and as swiftly upon new places as does the dawn. Yet, for all of this, our ways must follow that purity of heart that may only be found through loving communion with the divine within. Let us now, with full courage, examine why we have created this reality, for who here has not brought the Toelakhan among us? When we find our truths, we shall free ourselves."
"Amen," murmured many of us.
"I must admit, " said one of the Priestesses, "I have been wishing for some kind of test of my devotion. I feel that my life as a Priestess is so easy. I wanted a way to prove my willingness to protect this seminary that I so love."
"What art thou learning from this challenge?" responded Priestess Kindling.
"Truly, we must beware what we wish, for surely we shall receive it."
"We must examine our beliefs," we chanted, and a disciple spoke up.
"I believe life is full of danger; I do believe there are many evil people, people who want to destroy what is good in Ipernia."
"What art thou learning from this challenge?" responded Priestess Kindling.
"I guess, that my fear has brought evil to me."
Soma, the disciple who had flown on the table spoke, "Ever since I was a little child I felt I could do anything. Anything at all, even fly. I've always felt it is my destiny to take on the Toelakhan."
"What art thou learning from this challenge?"
"Tonight I flew, but with the help of others. I am learning that some things, most things, require a group effort. One can only be a Superman with lots of help."
I couldn't believe my ears. Was everyone truly responsible for this attack by the Toelakhan? The Toelakhan had a real reason to go after me. They considered me their property. I meant hard, cold, cash to them.
"You can't blame yourselves for this!" I burst out. "It is all my fault. The Toelakhan are after me. In this Temple it is my right to ask for and receive a vow of secrecy before I tell you any more."
Everyone was stunned.
"Gladly we shall we give thee our vows," said Priestess Kindling, "but remember this: the laying of blame whether on others or upon ourselves serves only to hide the truth. Though certain of our actions may cause great harm to others, to try to place fault, blame, rather than to delve into the why, forbids us the privilege of changing the unwanted for the welcome. While wrongdoing out of intention or carelessness must be acknowledged and restitution made, it must be understood who is the wrongdoer; who the wronged. The wronged should be comforted and asked to show what circumstances led to the calamity so that no more such calamities may befall the already wronged. Let us create ourselves anew so we become even healthier, more loving, and more powerful." So saying Priestess Kindling prompted the assembled into the ritual vow of secrecy.
I was frightened enough by the evening's events, but a disciple's clothes burst into flame as she recited the oath. I became a cold statue of fear and horror. Others rushed to put out the flames. The disciple, who was a small wisp of a woman, screamed with terror after the flames were put out, but she was unharmed.
A lanky young Priest spoke to her kindly, "Fiya, why didst thy apparel burst into flame?"
A friend of hers patted Fiya's head while Fiya wept bitterly. The friend said, "So the one who never dreams, who has no talent for clairvoyance or telepathy discovers her power."
This brought about great, wrenching sobs from Fiya. Veerst, whom I usually thought of as Mr. Books, studied Fiya. He turned his look to me. I could see gears whirling behind those thinking eyes. I could see the thoughts click together in a pattern he'd been searching for. He lifted his face, his eyes widened, his eyebrows rose. Veerst walked over to me, and looked from me to Fiya and back again.
Placing his outstretched hand firmly on my shoulder he said, "In the course of thy dreams, a certain image appears and reappears. This image we have sought to understand in a variety of ways, but each time, thou did not feel the explanation offered was quite right. This image was of a child walking unharmed through a corridor of flames. Do we now understand this meaning? Is this woman--" he gestured to the weeping Fiya, "that child grown up?"
"Yes, yes, yes," Fiya burst out, "how could she know who I am? I am that child that burns things. My parents left me in the care of my grandmother when they wanted to go out. My grandmother said I was an ugly, hateful, child who only wanted things her own way. She said this because I cried for my mother when she left the house. I was afraid of my grandmother; she locked me in closets, hit me, and told me I should be sent to the star Little Ippa so that my soul's impurities could be burnt clean. She tied me up in blankets so that I couldn't move, and one time left the gas on. I awoke to firemen filling the house and demanding to know why only the child had been overcome by the fumes. A few nights later, she said when I got old and ugly I would die and my body would be sent to Little Ippa. I got angry. I told her I didn't have to wait I could do it right now! nd so I thought the flame thoughts. I felt the tingling over my skin grow into heat. The heat grew around me like a turtle shell. I was safe locked inside the heat. I thought how the nice firemen would come.
“My grandmother said, 'l’ll put you in the closet.‘
“I said, ‘You can't. The heat protects me like Little Ippa protects purity.’"
“She said, ‘You awful child, I feel sorry for your mother. She was always a good little girl.’
“I got so mad I thought the flame thoughts. I wanted the flames to come like they had when daddy asked me to light the fire. The flames came! They protected me! My grandmother ran away. I walked through the house after her. The flame thoughts made real flame. She should see them; then she would know I was good, that I did not lie. The flame thoughts made me calm. The flame thoughts reminded me that I should put out the real flames. But the house was on fire. The flame thoughts told me not to worry, just to walk outside, and then to stop thinking flame thoughts. So I walked down the hall, and it was all on fire around me. But I wasn't scared. I was calm. I walked out of the house and stopped thinking flame thoughts. But the house was burning, and sirens were coming. My grandmother didn't come out of the house.
“My mother explained to me later that other people don't have flame thoughts to make fire, and they don't have flame thoughts that protect them from fire. So my grandmother was caught in the fire, and since she didn't know about flame thoughts, she died. My mother told me I had better not think flame thoughts anymore because they were too dangerous."
Fiya pointed at me, "How could she know? How could she know who I am? How could I keep a secret for her when she told everyone my secret!"
"I didn't know, I didn't know, it was just a dream," I was crying now, too.
"You knew someone would figure it out, and you knew. You had to know. You always figure out things. You can't tell me you didn't know! You told! But please, please I don't make fire anymore. Don't be afraid of me!"
The lanky Priest held her, "There, there, we are not afraid of thee. Dost thou think thou didst burst aflame because thou wanted protection, and had not been practicing thy talent and so lost control?"
"Aye, that is so."
"Thou needs not take any oath, thou mayst go to the salt shafts to practice with Priestess Kindling. She has the talent of fire, too."
"Is this so?"
Priestess Kindling nodded "Why should my Priestess name be Kindling, if it were not so? Tell me, dost thou not feel free now that thou dost acknowledge thy truth?"
"Yes, yes, I do. You know, I wish to take the oath. How could such misery as my heart has felt be so free and full of joy now?"
"Thou hast experienced a catharsis, let us now give our oath, so that this disciple, too, might acknowledge to us her truth."
"Yes, it isn't good to keep thyself locked up from others; let us vow," said Fiya, smiling as she wiped away her tears and blew her nose noisily into a blue tissue someone (was it me?) had handed her. The vow of secrecy was chanted.
I took a breath and with voice all a-quiver I said, "I am from
another Universe. I am listed by the Toelakhan as a zitam. The reason the Toelakhan are invading this sanctuary is because they are searching for me."
"This can not be true," Mr. Books stated simply.
"Dost thou also doubt that I can light fires by intent thought?" remarked Fiya in the Priestly dialect, with an imposing and unshakeable quality about her. The timid, wisp of a woman was gone, replaced by this small, lithe, woman of depth.
"Spontaneous combustion is known to occur. I have not seen thou think a fire into occurrence." Mr. Books always prided himself on his facility with the Priestly dialect.
"Then place some incense on that lectern and I will burn it for thee."